October 2003

This Ain't No Walk in the Park
Mike Schiller founded the Western Pennsylvania Field Institute to get himself out-of-doors. Now, more than 6,000 people are tagging along.

By Christine H. O'Toole

You’d think his mind would be on his impending trip to Russia, where he plans to climb Mount Elbrus, an 18,000-foot-tall dormant volcano. But instead, Mike Schiller is focused on bicycles. His feet propped up on the table at the Western Pennsylvania Field Institute’s downtown headquarters, Schiller, the institute’s founder, listens intently to his staff discuss next year’s Pittsburgh mountain bike festival. Below his baggy shorts, he sports matching palm-sized purple bruises on each thigh—the product of his introduction to the sport the previous weekend.

Finally he chimes in. “Put this in the back of your mind: a week-long Institute trip to Moab in 2005.” He’s referring to Utah’s mountain-biking mecca. “That’s something to aspire to—‘Someday I’ll be ready for Moab, if I keep going out with WPFI.’”

That’s the kind of grand vision that led Schiller to leave his booming software company, Confluence, and start the Western Pennsylvania Field Institute in 2001. The mission of the ecology-and-adventure hybrid organization is simple, if sprawling: to get more people enjoying the great Western Pennsylvania outdoors. And so far, it’s going pretty well. More than 6,700 people will enroll in a WPFI program this year, up from 1,341 two years ago—a fivefold increase since 2001.

What’s the Field Institute’s appeal to Pittsburghers? Schiller offers a simple Buddhist aphorism: “When the student is ready, the teacher will come.”

chiller’s father, Frank, who owned Reynolds Market in Point Breeze, introduced young Mike to Scouting and camping as a boy. Schiller played football for Central Catholic High School and later Princeton, but it was mountaineering that became his lifelong avocation. At 6-foot-3, the 41-year-old’s chiseled physique bespeaks solitary time in the mountains; so does an Emerson-like self-awareness.

He remembers the evening, camping alone at 11,000 feet on Colorado’s Mount Princeton, when he first felt the spark of the Field Institute idea. “There was a moment of connection,” he says, “when I thought, ‘There ought to be a way to give everyone a chance to enjoy this.’” And he recalls the subsequent moment, working at his office job, when he decided the time had come: “It was a November morning, about 34 degrees and raining. I thought, ‘I would rather be hiking in a T-shirt than sitting in here.’”

The Field Institute invites newbies of all ages to try snowshoeing, Japanese fish-print-making, family camp-outs, fishing at the Point, even doggie hikes in local parks. With thousands of participants, the institute has mushroomed, grabbing partners from local businesses and nonprofits; the R.K. Mellon Foundation has given the organization more than $650,000.

A career in the great outdoors comes with some misconceptions. “Lots of people have the impression that I’m always on vacation,” Schiller admits. “I spend a lot more time outside than maybe the average bear, but it’s still a job. There’s a lot of planning for every one of these activities.” And there are more than 250 individual activities currently on the Field Institute’s public schedule, not counting private group excursions.

Schiller’s normal work attire is cargo shorts, hiking sneakers and shaggy shoulder-length hair. But he can still speak like a suit: “What occupies the bulk of my attention is defining the business model, refining the business model well enough that we can become self-supporting, attracting more investment capital and growing revenue streams over some period of time,” he says. “We will never be completely independent of foundation support, but I think we need to broaden it.”

The business argot is second nature to the Stanford M.B.A., honed over a software- development career that brought him home to Pittsburgh in 1989. An idea hatched with co-worker Mark Evans at Mellon became Confluence, the North Shore company that designs financial software for mutual funds. When Schiller decided to sell his share in the firm, he shrewdly designed his next venture as a business too.

“ He brought the business plan for WPFI to me,” recalls Evans, who has remained Confluence’s president and Schiller’s friend. “He had a genuine entrepreneurial game plan. A lot of nonprofits are all about getting grant money; he approached it the way you approach a business. He had milestones and a clear sense of mission. At his heart and core, he’s passionate about the outdoors. He really, really loves this stuff.”

he Field Institute’s programs, from rock-climbing skill sessions to hikes to nature journaling classes, may attract thousands, but the nonprofit’s paid staff is only five people. Schiller’s background and commitment to cyber-communications make the engine fly. “I realized we could do a lot more,” he says, if the Institute combined its earthy mission with a high-tech approach. “We could get a lot more information to the world at large and be a clearinghouse [for other organizations]. The only efficient way to do that was electronically.” The Institute’s e-newsletter, website (www.wpfi.org) and database therefore constitute the heart of its communications operation.

An eclectic crop of green-related groups, from the Daedalus Hang Gliding Club to Pittsburgh Off-Road Cyclists to the Western Pennsylvania Mushroom Club, welcome WPFI’s activism. Schiller notes that these volunteer groups have a high level of turnover and wants the Institute’s outdoor leadership programs to build “a cadre of outdoor leaders.”

Allegheny County Parks and Recreation director Andy Baechle sees a different benefit for the groups. “People can see there’s a lot to do from the [Institute] website. [A newcomer] can pull it up and instantly connect with a group of people and be brought into the club. WPFI can bring the people that are interested to the people that know.”

Schiller’s future goals are lofty: creating “the next level of programming” by working with bigger partners, like the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and finding more sources for sponsorship and support. Through evaluation forms distributed after every outing, Schiller is finding, to his surprise, that 40-somethings are the most receptive audience for the Institute’s offerings. He thus plans to build programs for families this fall: Weekly “tyke hikes” for moms and toddlers, bike tours and “G-and-G” tours for grandparents and grandchildren are on October’s schedule, along with a hike and pancake dinner in the Laurel Highlands. Meanwhile, the Institute has concluded that 20-somethings seem lured by events that conclude with beer-and-wine socializing, as well as by more “extreme” activities, so Pittsburghers can expect to see more of those this season.

All that, for Schiller, is hard work. By contrast, climbing an 18,000-foot peak like Mount Elbrus is a breeze. “Is it a vacation? Totally,” he says. “You let go of everything, for days on end, and live in the moment. Your muscle memory and the power of the mountain just draw you upward. You focus on each step. It’s a mental vacation.”